Recent & Upcoming Technical Issues

[Sajjad]

AA

Sorry Rashid for the lack of reply and response, Internet supply at home has been on/off and the BT engineer only came today...anyway I digress...I've set the permissions so that guests cannot post and must register in order to do so for every board.

Second thing, regarding the microsite, that might be a pain because I'm not sure whether you can use FTP transfer (i.e. simple copy and paste onto the web folder that holds the web-pages) but in principle we already have the files and should be able to transfer. I'm going to have to dabble around and see whether the are sites are currently functional and whether I can add stuff to it as well as seeing the limitations of the new system. Alternatively, although with financial expense, is the purchasing of a domain name i.e. a site like www.rums-isoc.org. I wouldn't recommend putting our pages on a free web-hosting service.

Another issue is the design of a new site (iA if the prospective webmaster doesn't mind!) I think a flash based site is too high maintenance and too difficult to update, I would like to see a switch to HTML with flash elements embedded.

WS

Saj

[NMA]

AA,

I would recommend against purchasing a domain nmae, as 1. it contravenes UCLU regulations, and 2. there is extra cost. I havn't seen specifics, but as long as the server bandwidth remains and there is no limit on site size, then the microsites proposed should function identical to the current site, with only a change of address, I think.

wrt redesigning the site, I would recommend against. The current site is the best designed site we have ever had, far better than the ones I used to do, which were only redesigned so often because my technical ability improved, or I wrote more content than the previous design happily catered for. As long as the incoming webmaster can amend the site when needed, it does not necessary need redesigning. As for regular amendments, these are not needed. If you keep the website bit static, and the forums remain dynamic, then most updates can happen here, and maybe 3 or 4 updates to the website itself per year. It takes a huge amount of effort to update the website, especially if there is a 'latest news' bit or something, and as there is soo little news this then just looks out of date. On the other hand, if people become more involved, they can submit articles etc for the website here, have some open critique and then just copy it across. You can even be oportunistic about it, e.g. someone asks a question about embryology or something, and if anyone gives a really good answer, that can be stowed away on the website, thereby building up the content and quality of the site. Of course, this does require people to use the forums a little more...

Well, thats my 2 cents worth.

wslm

NMA